It couldn't be a long campaign, perhaps, with winter
close at hand, but it would be a lively one. Of that the chief felt well
assured.
Now, there was something uncanny about this outbreak on the part of the
Sioux, and the general was puzzled. Up to September the Indians had been
busy with the annual hunt. They were fat, well-fed, prosperous,--had got
from the government pretty much everything that they could ask with any
show of reason and, so they said, had been promised more. The rows
between the limited few of their young men and some bullies among the
"rustlers" had been no more frequent nor serious than on previous
summers, when matters had been settled without resort to arms; but this
year the very devil seemed to have got into the situation. Something, or
probably somebody, said the general, had been stirring the Indians up,
exciting--exhorting possibly, and almost the first thing the general did
as he climbed stiffly out of his stout Concord wagon, in the paling
starlight of the early morning, was to turn to Dade, now commanding the
post, and to say he should like, as soon as possible, to see Bill Hay.
Meantime he wished to go in and look at the wounded.
It was not yet five o'clock, but Dr.
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